jackinthebox

Maybe in Bangkok. But when I wander around walking street in Pat. after midnight I feel like sitting in a "Geisterbahn-Trolley"

Hey, Thai PBS, this picture isn't appropriate! You show a normal traffic and road-condition here (ie. pickup overtaking some trucks). The graphics that describe the actual situation better can be found on kaotic or liveleak or bestgore.com: dozens of mashed or beheaded moped-drivers under truck-wheels.

The signalling system is perfectly adequate, as long as the signals are obeyed. The method of fixing rails to sleepers is perfectly adequate if sleepers are replaced when they rot. Passing messages as described, although low tech, works does it not?

The problem with Thailand's railway system does not lie in the age of the equipment, it lies in the way in which it is managed.

The fastest train from Buriram to Bangkok ("Special express") takes 7½ hours - for a distance of 380 kilometers! Obviousliy, they can't do it faster with the existing equipment (tracks, trains, signalling, crossing, stations etc.). Thai trains have an average travel speed of 40-50kph. So, instead of dreaming of bullet trains going 300kph (wich they will never afford, even with the help of the Chinese) they should with little money mondernise their existing system and try to reach average travel speeds of 80-100kph, wich would be enough for a country the size of thailand (ie. 7 hour ride Bangkok-ChiangMai compared to 12 hours today or 10 hours Bangkok-HatYai compared to 16½ hours today).

Thai overland train-system is really stuck in the 19. century while most other countries (even 3.-world countries) have arrived in the 21. century. Have you ever seen the "communication" in running trains or at stations? Messages are in a little plastic-bag that dangles on a pole beside the track. The train driver grab them WITH BARE HANDS and then, a few miles later, hang that plastic-bag with the "answer" back on another pole, sometimes with the help of stick. You can watch that at the stations in Buriram or Udon-Thani or when you go to the first carriage and watch the drivers-cabin from behind. I have never seen that anywhere in the world and it really makes the impression of a child-train in an amusement-park....

Well then - when there will be the first Brand-names and articles developed (not assembled!) in Thailand? Things that you can export and that bring revenue? Complex goods with a high vertical range of manufacture like japanese or korean or taiwanese products? Until then, Thailand will not be able to pay high wages and salaries IMHO.

A complete ban isn`t a good idea IMHO. Even in germany a child of as little as 5 or 6 can be a passenger on a motorbike with appropriate child seat (of course only ONE per vehicle and with helmet). If children aren't allowed to be passengers on a motorbike, what comes next? Ban them from riding their own little bikes to elementary school? They must have the right to be outside traffic participants! Otherwise everything will even more focus on cars, cars, cars. There are really enough of them in thailand!

Either my englisch is so bad or the article is poorely written:

>Airports however are given the same allowance as before while entertainment venues which in the past were allowed to sell alcohol from 9.00 pm – 2.00 am can only do so up to midnight.

This means that in total, night time entertainment venues can only legally sell alcohol for 5 hours every day which in total is less than regular restaurants.

So this means according to the new regulations that discotheques, pubs, Bars, Karaokes etc. are allowed to sell alcohol from 9.00 pm up to midnight? That would be crazy! And that would by the way only be 3 (!) hours instead of five as stated in the article.

Nice Video, however, western countries could never promote their domestic tourism with a dub text like the TAT-clip. All the off-voice says is: travel, relax, party, dance enjoy thai things, in thay style, the thay way, with thai people. See thai things, hear thai music from thais for thais, eat thai-food prepared by thais and dedicated to thais etc. and so on. If this was all you could hear in a spot for german tourism everybody would say the whole ad is egoistic, racist, nationalistic, chauvinist and simply "nazi".

Pah- two years. I am sure they will finish earlier and maiden trip will be next year. More important: WHAT will be for lunch in the dining car?

Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses.....

Speech is silver, but silence is golden.

As far as I know you can still anonymously buy (prepaid-)SIM-Cards in Thailand or use old ones that hadn't been registered. And even if that is not possible, you could still use foreign SIM-Cars from for example Laos, Cambodia or even any european country via roaming within thailand. Or you could send and receive LINE-messages to and from Thailand while you and your phone is abroad in Singapore or UK. So what sense makes a monitoring of messages? What would they do if there were any illegal information or propaganda? Block the account? I am not sure if that is technically possible for the police or the military. Arrest the sender or receiver of the offending Bytes and Downloads? How? If they don't have his adress (unregistered SIM-Card)? Are they going to install IMSI-Catchers in the streets of Bangkok? But even then you would have hundreds of Devices in one single GPRS-cell in downtown Sukhumvit....

Trust me, 180km/h is more than enough. And by the way - having 250km/h passenger-trains and 110km/h freight-trains on the same track is very very rare and would be complicated. Doesn't mix at all here in germany.

Maybe it will be a fleet of MB Citaro's

That would be great! Mercedes-Benz- best busses at all. But wait - who is going to sell you a brandnew western standard commuter-bus for as low as 3.5 or 4 Million Bath? They are sold around 8 Million. But wait - you can get them used for as low as 1.5Mio Baht (35 000.- €) - 10 years old, 1 Mio. kilometers. Still better than chinese crap and everything that is rolling on Bangkok-streets today:

http://suchen.mobile.de/lkw-inserat/mercedes-benz-o-530-citaro-315-4416-gr%C3%BCne-plakette-untersteinach-bei-kulmbach/203066936.html

Boggles the mind to read, year after year how the NE people and the government simply doesn't

know how to deal, and how completely unprepared they are to the cold season, I mean, com'on, is this the

first cold season you have experienced in your life? and every year the same story, people die,

people starve, shortage of blankets food, heating etc. etc..

when will you ever learn to prepare for anything in life people of the north? here is a clue,

cold seasons will come every year round this time of the year, let's see the headlines next

year...

Remember...?

deleted post.

A high-speed train for Thailand is complete rubbish. Why do they want to jump from 1905 to 2015? If they aim so high (ie. 300kph bullet train with enormous expenisve tracks, bridges and tunnels), they will NEVER achieve it. This will only lead to another Hopewell-desaster.

Better modernize your run-down "Bimmelbahn" to an electrified, double-track, standard-gauge train system of european (provincial) level (ie. TER, IC, EC, Rapide) with a max. speed of 150kph so that you could reach an average travel-speed of 110kph. Bangkok-NongKhai or Bangkok-UbonRatchathani in 5-6 hours (instead of 10-11. nowadays) - fast enough. AND your could mix with little effort freight an passenger trains - what is normally not possible on a high-speed railway-system.

If this article is about private-run Baht-Buses (Songteauws, ie. Pick-Ups with passenger-seats on the plattform) then it is NOT about the big (Bangkok-)state-run buses.

As for the Baht-Buses in KhonKaen, Sukhothai, HatYai, Pattaya or the Bangkok-outskirts, it is a decent and cheap means of travel (5-15 Baht, the fare IS according to distance, see the scheme/sticker on the back-window of the cab). I don't think that they loose customers to Motorsaai-Taxis, simpy because you would pay for the same distance 50-80Baht and therefore quite expensive for average thais (houswifes, students, factory-workers...).

>In return, it has caused baht buses to lose 70 percent of their customers and their income to decrease by 700-800 baht per day.

That would mean they previously had an income of 1100-1400 Baht per day, wich is far above the thai wages of 250-400 Baht per day. I think you could reach that only by scamming tourists (the well-known always honking, aggressive and ennoying Songteaws in KohChang, KohSamui who would charge 500 Baht/person for a 7km ride - 10 times higher than a bangkok-Taxi!!

>Nearly 2,000 hotels in Bangkok and its outskirts are running without licences or are understood to be illegal. Only 469 hotels in the areas have a licence.

Rubbish...

If they only could say this....: